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Prime
Real Estate
By Shawn
Stone
Sunshine
State
Directed by John Sayles
In Sunshine State, writer-director John Sayles tells
the story of what happens to the community when a large development
company descends on a sleepy Florida island. His sense of
what a community is—the people and forces that make it work,
or not work, as the case may be—is akin to a scientist charting
an ecosystem. Sayles is equally interested in (and amused
by) the varied and curious human critters in this particular
environment.
It’s an ensemble piece, but there are two (more or less) lead
characters. Desiree (Angela Bassett) is returning to the island
for the first time since she was 15, while Marly (Edie Falco)
never left. Both have difficult relationships with a disapproving
parent; both have reached some measure of middle-aged disillusionment.
The difference is that Desiree’s problems are with the past,
while Marly faces an uncertain future. Desiree is the prodigal
child, but her disapproving mother (Mary Alice) isn’t putting
on any homecoming celebration. Marly can’t seem to get away;
her penchant for dating men just passing through is telling.
Both have something the developers want: prime real estate.
Interestingly, these women, though the same age, have never
met, and never meet in the story. A legacy of segregation.
One of the film’s many careful details.
Sayles has always had Woody Allen’s knack for attracting mainstream
actors to his independent projects. With Sayles, however,
the emphasis is on actor; while Allen tries to snag
the hot performer of the moment, Sayles casts strictly for
skill. Sunshine State has, arguably, the most accomplished
ensemble Sayles has yet put together. Matched with a script
rich with nuance and surprise, these actors are at the top
of their form.
Most notable are Timothy Hutton as Jack, the landscape architect
who invokes Frederick Law Olmstead, supervises the “taming”
of nature, and romances Marly; Mary Steenburgen as the self-absorbed
chamber-of-commerce organizer; and Jane Alexander as Delia,
a community-theater impresario whose florid, Tennessee Williams-style
manner masks a cool, calculating mind. Even the cameo appearances
are memorable. Alan King and Clifton James are hilarious as
the film’s Greek chorus, a couple of rich men waxing philosophical
about dreams and schemes on a golf course. Gordon Clapp, as
Steenburgen’s tormented husband, makes one comical suicide
attempt after another.
The film has a loose, rambling structure. Nothing new for
John Sayles (remember City of Hope?), but it fits well
with the sunny, laid-back Florida setting. There may be no
shortage of scheming, unforgiving and greedy behavior, but
no one seems to be in a hurry about it.
The history of Florida is a history of land speculation. The
film is especially good at showing how stacked the deck is,
in favor of what Marly’s father (grizzled but likable Ralph
Waite) bitterly calls the “multinational buzzards.” An octopus
would be a better metaphor. With their deep resources, developers
attack a desired property quietly, with many arms and from
many angles. And the story makes it clear that no matter how
many arms you cut off, there’s always another left.
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| Fur
sure: Stuart Little 2. |
The
Mouse That Soared
Stuart
Little 2
Directed
by Rob Minkoff
It’s
a rare treat when a sequel is better than its predecessor,
but such is the case with Stuart Little 2. Whereas
the first movie had a nice warmth and coziness to it, this
version, directed by Rob Minkoff, leaps off the screen in
ways that still are warm and cozy, but with an added sense
of adventure and bravado.
The movie is all about growing pains. With big brother George
(Jonathan Lipnicki) preferring the company of homo sapiens
his own age, and most of his school chums involved in after-school
activities, Stuart is in need of a special friend, someone
perhaps his own minuscule size. It doesn’t help that loving
mom Mrs. Little (Geena Davis) is just a tad overprotective
of her furry son, but who can blame her when she sees Stuart
(Michael J. Fox) make a winning soccer goal by being stuck
on the ball? No sooner has Mr. Little (Hugh Laurie) encouraged
Stuart by reminding him that every cloud has a silver lining,
than our little mouse has the opportunity to save small bird
Margalo (Melanie Griffith) from the menacing clutches of Falcon
(who else? James Woods). Together, mouse and bird forge a
sweet relationship, enjoying drives in Stuart’s red roadster
and watching Vertigo on a portable TV, which looks
to them like a drive-in theater.
But just as the Kim Novak character in Vertigo wasn’t
who she appeared to be, so is Margalo not exactly the tenderhearted
victim she seems. Turns out she’s in a league with the evil
Falcon, and has tapped Stuart as entree to the riches of the
Little home. Will friendship save the day? Will Stuart, with
the aid of family cat Snowbell (Nathan Lane), be able to return
Mom’s diamond ring and get back home before breakfast? Can
little people really do big things? Screenwriters Bruce Joel
Rubin and Douglas Wick make these adventures zing. It helps
that we care immensely about the characters, but just imagine
the mind-boggling possibilities of Stuart trapped on a garbage
barge sailing out of New York Harbor. Or Snowbell stuck in
a paint can rolling perilously toward the edge of the top
of a skyscraper.
Meanwhile, George learns an important lesson about protecting
family, as he, Mr. and Mrs. Little, and baby Martha go in
hot pursuit of their missing loved one. Cinematographer Steven
Poster’s and production designer Bill Brzeski’s contributions
to the movie are such that we’re talking much, much more than
simply outstanding use of color (warm melons, yellows and
reds predominate) and textures. Indeed, they succeed in transforming
modern-day Manhattan into a treasure trove of little neighborhoods,
each an exciting adventure for Stuart and company. There’s
almost a literacy to the look of the film, which enhances
both the concept of family unity and the thrill of the overall
adventure. Culminating in a madcap chase over and through
Central Park that seamlessly blends the movie’s live and computer-animated
effects, Stuart Little 2 is that rare family film that
respects its audience enough to hold off from sarcasm (except
from the mouth of Snowbell) and “hipness,” and instead deliver
a simply marvelous and timeless classic.
—Laura
Leon
Out
of Their Depth
K-19:
The Widowmaker
Directed by Kathryn
Bigelow
Set in 1961 and “inspired by” a true episode in Cold War history,
K-19: The Widowmaker is titled after the greatest
weapon in the Soviet Union: a ballistic nuclear submarine
constructed in response to America’s Polaris missile-bearing
subs. The Russian sub was a guarantee that the mutually assured
destruction between the two superpowers stayed mutual—until
it developed a cooling-system failure that almost ignited
World War III. But even before K-19 leaves the dock
for its belligerent test run into NATO waters, half a dozen
Russians are dead. The crew dubs the sub “the widowmaker,”
doomed from the start by Communist cost-cutting measures,
party politics, and defective parts. The sub’s fate seems
to be sealed when its seaworthy captain is replaced by a rigid
apparatchik.
The film is doomed from the start, too. After the masterful
suspense of Das Boot and the blockbuster personality
conflicts of The Hunt For Red October, sub stories
of any nationality have little room left to maneuver. K-19
doesn’t even try to chart new waters, relying on its star
power to fuel the “boat” through the high seas of submarine-warfare
clichés. But because the true story is a good one, and because
the two captains who butt heads under the suffocating bulkheads
are played by Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson, the film gets
by well enough.
Ford is Capt. Alexei Vostrikov, an ambitious bureaucrat with
party connections on his wife’s side. During a pep rally for
the test run, he sternly informs the crew, “Much is expected
of us. We will not fail.” He then precedes to almost destroy
the boat with a morale-building crush-depth dive. Neeson is
benevolent Capt. Mikhail Polemin, who tells his usurper that
“Crews are like families, and the captain is the father.”
Their conflicting command methods constitute most of the onboard
drama, although they employ the same gruff and gravel-throated
voice of authority for their scuffles (while respectfully
ignoring each other’s faltering Russian accents). As for the
rest of the crew, don’t you just know that the openly religious
young sailor kissing his orthodox cross isn’t going to live
long enough to get sent to the Gulag, and that the sniveling
greenhorn reactor technician (Peter Sarsgaard) is going to
find his courage?
What we don’t know is what a radiation leak can do to crew
members stoically trying to prevent a thermonuclear meltdown.
This horrific, real-life sequence is one of the few reminders
that director Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break, Blue
Steel) is an action commander of the highest order, a
fact that is proven when the sub’s out-of-control ascent hits
a polar ice cap. But perhaps due to the tenor of the present
time, Bigelow foregoes the subversive originality that made
her After Dark and Strange Days films such underappreciated
pleasures. Instead, K-19 is unabashedly nostalgic,
from the grandly overbearing score by the Kirov Orchestra
to the two captains’ reverential invocations of “the motherland.”
It’s also leaden in parts, due to the lack of a definable
conflict (the American warship shadowing the sub’s every move
is, apparently, on hand only to effect a rescue). The crew’s
patriotism is boringly at odds with the sub’s real enemy:
Soviet agitprop and the crappy war materials it produced.
But maybe we’re supposed to be exalted by the idea of honor
among warmongers. And compared to teenage suicide bombers
who sneak into civilian zones, maybe the film has a point.
Yet even as the reactor chamber reaches 950 degrees, it’s
noticeable that K-19’s righteousness is running out
of steam.
—Ann
Morrow
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